Our most successful Fill That Bus Drive Yet!

Fill That Bus 2016

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The Durham community once again showed its overwhelming support for our teachers. More than 200 businesses, associations and neighborhoods participated in the 2016 Fill That Bus School Supply Drive that raised $170,000 worth of supplies and cash to stock our warehouse shelves.

Partners in the 2016 Drive

The Fill That Bus Drive was founded by the Durham Rotary clubs and they continue to be important partners in many Fill That Bus activities. In addition to many Rotary members hosting bins at their businesses, the five Durham Rotary clubs staffed the bus at the main collection event at Office Depot/Sams Parking lot on all day on Saturday, August 20.

Windsor Circle is a long-time C2C partner. This year in addition to collecting and sorting supplies the Windsor Circle team fanned out across the community to help pick-up supplies from 20 collection locations.

Our friends at Brame/Not Just Paper spent a morning sorting and counting supplies and also donated more than 7000 highlighters as well as paint, construction paper, other office supplies.

The Durham Visitor Center rallied the local breweries and distilleries and put together a highly sought-after gift basket for the raffle at our kick-off event at the Blue Note Grill on Sunday, July 24. They also helped pick up supplies from many downtown collection sites.

C2C partners with the Durham Police Department to encourage neighborhoods to participate in FTB as part of their National Night Out activities on Tuesday, August 2.

Fundraising and Special Collection Events

We kicked off this year’s drive on July 24 at the Blue Note Grill featuring a raffle with Durham staycation prizes including an overnight getaway package from the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Course, tickets for the Downtown Durham Walking Tour, a Durham brewery/distillery gift basket, artwork for Cedar Creek Artists Lisa Oakley, Will Kurylo and gift certificates from 140 Salon, Massage Envy and Blu Seafood and Bar. The event raised $1000

Pomodoro Italian Kitchen and California Pizza out Southpoint each held Fill That Bus fundraising events which raised nearly $600.

We collected supplies and $650 cash donations on two Saturday mornings in August at the Downtown Durham Farmers Market.

Chic-fil-A on Roxboro Road hosted a bus to collect supplies on Friday, Aug 5 and gave free sandwiches to any donor who brought at least 3 school supplies.

The RTP Rotary Club filled a bus with 40 bins of supplies at the RTP Food Truck Rodeo on Friday, August 12. They also worked with the food truck vendors to raise an additional $500.

Durham Performing Arts Center hosted barrels to collect supplies throughout the run of Newsies.

Our main collection event on August 20 was held at Office Depot/Sams Club parking lot and Chic-fil-A outside Renaissance Village. Each location hosted a bus to collect supplies and gave gift certificates for Chic-fil-A sandwiches to any donor who brought at least 3 school supplies. The Chic-fil-A at South Square donated the gift certificates at the Office Depot location.

Volunteers

Fill That Bus can only happen with the support of hundreds of volunteers. Special thanks go the FTB planning committee volunteers Tom Leibhold, Timothy Franks and Cat Lunger. We are fortunate to have numerous enthusiastic volunteers willing to distribute and pick up bins all over the Triangle, staff events, and count and sort an incredible volume of supplies. There are too many individuals to name, but we would like to thank several groups that provided exceptional help this year.